Highway blocked after portion of road gets washed away in northern India
by Surya PrakashA road leading to a tunnel (T5) got washed off due to heavy rainfall in northern India’s Jammu and Kashmir. Incessant rainfall has triggered landslides which has led to several roads being blocked, which includes the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway.
This road bypassed the Pantiyal area of Ramban district and this happened on July 8.
Visuals showed the road being washed off while water was being drained by pipelines below it. In a matter of seconds, the whole portion of the road in front of a tunnel collapsed and crumbled down, getting reduced to nothing but gravel. In another visual, an excavator was seen at work as it cleared out the debris on the road from a landslide. According to a report, the other roads which were blocked included the Mughal Road, and Srinagar-Sonamarg-Gumri (SSG) Road.
The authorities have urged people to consult the Traffic Control Unit (TCU) for checking about the availability of the highway before making travel plans. Mohita Sharma, the Senior Superintendent of Police at Ramban, said, “Heavy rain along with landslide, mudslide and shooting stones in various stretches of Srinagar-Jammu National Highway at Ramban have closed the highway till clearance.”